Human Issue - In Flesh (White Vinyl)

Black Inside White With Red Swirl Vinyl LP

This pressing of In Flesh is the black-inside-white vinyl with a red swirl, one of three colorways Smartpunk Records pressed in runs of 100 copies each; the other two are a blue with red and black splatter Smartpunk exclusive and a pink and green propeller band exclusive. The album's nine songs run about fifteen minutes on a single LP, and most of them land under two minutes.

Human Issue is a Southern California hardcore punk band that Hunter Martinez started as a music collective rather than a fixed lineup. Its debut EP, Faceless. Nameless (2022), drew contributions from Rikk Agnew, Crow Jane, Bryan Lothian and others, with most tracks recorded almost exactly as they were written. Encouraged by drummer Sam Mankinen, Martinez turned the project into a live band with Matt Watkins on vocals, Ryan Marino on bass and Dylan Moore on guitar, and with friends rotating in, the band has toured across the US and into British Columbia.

In Flesh is the band's debut full-length. Martinez and Watkins share vocals, and Smartpunk's notes say the lyrics draw directly on the two men's lives. Bryan Lothian of A Global Threat and Alex Jacobelli of Negative Blast produced the album, Jacobelli also engineered and mixed it, and Nick Townsend mastered it at Townsend Mastering. "Medicate" features Maria Xeno of FIXXER, and "In Flesh," "Waking" and "Vice" were released with videos. Martinez has described the record as focused on "using coping mechanisms to get through day-to-day life," touching on trauma bonding, substance use and technology obsession, and has said, "I'd like to say there's a sense of hope or hopefulness in these songs."

Tracklist

1. In Flesh
2. The World Is Your Oyster
3. Vice
4. Circles
5. Clocks Bow. Trees Frown.
6. Waking
7. Medicate
8. More Of The Same
9. Observer